Waterbed Inventor Still Making Waves In Mattress Trade

April 5, 1986|By Phyllis Drake, KNT News Service

After a flood of recognition in the late 1960s, Charles Hall, the San Francisco State University student who invented the waterbed and launched a new wave in mattresses, has quietly slipped from the mainstream of publicity. But Hall, 42, is still awash in waterbed design.

The owner of Basic Designs Inc. in Sausalito, Calif., and consultant to Monterey Manufacturing of Southern California, Hall has toted up a dozen U.S. patents -- the majority in waterbed design -- and has more pending.

''Frankly,'' says Hall, ''I'm still surprised at how long it took for a good idea to become recognized. The waterbed was such a misunderstood product. It went through all the hip connotations that made it a fad and took more years than I thought possible to live it down.''

Hall's waterbed design evolved as part of his master's thesis studying human comfort. And, although style was not a part of the project, Hall's red velvet-covered, 8-foot-square design, dubbed the Pleasure Pit, wowed viewers at its first public showing at San Francisco's Cannery Gallery in 1968.

Hall thought the bed would be a big hit, but instead it was viewed as just another example of California craziness. So, after his graduation from the department of design and industry in 1968, he moved to Southern California to take a teaching job in a private school.

But within a year he returned to the Bay Area and waterbeds to found Innerspace Environment, a company that Hall says pretty much introduced the West Coast to waterbeds.

The fact that his first company failed is all water under the bridge now. He currently is working on a design for what he calls a third-generation waterbed through Monterey Manufacturing, a part of the Sealy mattress empire. His new design uses a hybrid or flotation mattress it looks like a traditional mattress but floats like a waterbed with a quilted design that allows the body to sink deeply into the bed.

''It will offer the effect of flotation that I was after in the beginning,'' says Hall.

But Hall is not floating his entire design career on a waterbed.

Through his Sausalito company, he markets camping and boating gear, also of his own design.

Among his creations is the Sun Shower, a plastic bag that holds water that is warmed by the sun.

Although Hall was reared in Florida, he started camping at an early age with Canadian cousins.

''As much as I like camping -- and I get most of my design ideas while I am camping -- I miss the comforts of home . . . a bed, shower and good food,'' Hall says.

When he isn't traveling or overseeing manufacturing operations in the Orient, Hall lives on a 35-acre Sonoma County ranch with his wife, two daughters, four horses, a cat and dogs.

''At this point in my life, I'm having more fun,'' Hall says.

''The early years were filled with worry and work, but now I wake up in the morning much happier. Life is really nice these days.''